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Friday, November 5

Let's pretend us blondes are now in charge of cutting the federal budget!

Newmark's Door has a post up with some great links. I've only got as far as the Heritage Foundation's recommendations. I like their statement about "Empowering state and local governments. Congress should focus the federal government on performing a few duties well and allow the state and local governments, which are closer to the people, to creatively address local needs in areas such as transportation, justice, job training, and economic development."

Newcomers to Congress can find a wealth of budget-cutting ideas in recent plans by various D.C. think tanks:

At the Heritage Foundation, Brian Riedl has come up with $343 billion in proposed annual cuts.At the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Bill Galston and Maya MacGuineas have proposed $400 billion in annual cuts.Esquire magazine assembled four former senators who came up with $476 billion in annual cuts.The National Taxpayers Union teamed up with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group to propose $600 billion of cuts over five years.Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden of the Center for American Progress offer one plan that would cut annual spending by $255 billion.Cato’s website, www.downsizinggovernment.org, also provides a treasure trove of spending cuts, and I will be publishing a detailed budget-reform plan in coming days.

Some of the above budget plans include tax increases, but voters gave a resounding message yesterday that they want Congress to focus on cutting spending, not raising taxes.

All we can do is hope our newly elected officials really act on getting our house in order and don't just focus on repealing health care legislation for the next 2 years. I don't want to hear ANY discussion on health care in this country unless a public option is part of it. The public option will take care of the insurance industry's hefty profit they make off of our SICK health care system that treats diseases with big pharma's pills rather than teaching people how to prevent disease.

UPDATE: 7:35am and thinking a bit more clearly after a few cups of Java

Notice how there aren't too many suggestions under the header "Defense"?

SO, I'll start there...

DEFENSE CUTShow about a surtax on all corporations that produce the final product for ANYTHING that supports or funds our military in any other country but the US. TAX FREE if your final product stays here!! Let's try to spread our democracy around home. (this might just take care of everything else!)

EDUCATIONOut of the federal budget and into the hands of our local tax base. plenty of good teachers out there that my town could afford to pay privately. we would save a crap load of money because we would be paying them directly. I volunteer on a daily basis in the HS now. you can't even begin to imagine the waste of $$ everywhere. and I'm not even taking into account the waste on the administrative level in public education. why the hell do we have "curriculum specialists" in every school district in every town that are earning six figures? There's got to be a way to privatize (for lack of a better term right now) our existing schools with assistance from ONLY state money. I am so fucking sick of how my kids (who want to learn) have had to put up with a miserable school experience because of a few trouble makers and WAAAAY to many kids who have no interest (or ability) to learn whether it be because of their family issues or their attention spans. FOR CHRIST'S SAKE -- The amount of our tax dollars that have gone to security cameras and police presence in every one of our schools could have closed many school budget gaps over the past decade. All in fear over a few jerks who don't want to play by the rules. I say turn all the schools into "reform schools" and public housing for fucked up families who need to be afforded a place to start over and more importantly, to finally break this destructive cycle that so many families in poverty are permanently in.

Let all those kids (with out a doubt the majority) who really want to learn, out of those prisons we call public schools, and let them loose in the clouds. The sky's the limit on the internet as you all are aware. An education shouldn't cost anything. You just need desire.

HEALTHCAREshould be part of education actually, imho. every town should consider turning all their open space into community organic gardens. Agriculture curriculum programs at ALL the high schools, taught by all college agricultural students. Maybe get those kids with no attention spans out of the classroom and onto the farms. Sounds harsh I know but soon, NONE of these kids will have a clue how to feed themselves and future generations are going to be shit out of luck you know -- in case of an emergency or something (gas shortages, food shortages)

If we start eating healthy as a nation, our health care costs will eventually be minimal.

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I'll start a new post when we get some ideas about real solutions in the comment section. and THEN.....how about we vote on the best solutions that we would put in place if we were in charge?

We should try to get the the whole blog-o-sphere (left and right sites together) to submit ONE final list of proposals. Solutions that were voted on by all of us out here in the inter tubes that have been screaming our fingers off and not really accomplishing a whole lot.

We have accomplished one thing for sure. We've managed to keep each other sane up until now. I'm not sure I can sit back and bitch anymore, I'm unemployed -- I've got some extra time to start a few local gatherings.